Towards soft, adjustable, self-unfoldable and modular robots – an approach, concept and exemplary application

Appropriate assistive systems are used due to the demographic change, increased temporal and spatial interaction or integration of human and robots as well as necessary flexibility in respect to tasks and location. Especially safety and flexibility for effective human-robot-interaction and a broad spectrum of tasks are important. Existing technologies use different kinds of mechanisms or principles for realizing safe interaction, especially e.g. soft control, optical approaches and sensor skin in combination with conventional industrial robots. In addition, the field of soft materials robotics is becoming increasingly important, with the focus to increase E-modulus of structure elements. This paper presents an approach for soft and self-unfolding modular robots on the basis of paper lamella technology which can be used as a system for human-machine interaction as well as for robots with the ability of self-unfolding and -folding. For demonstration, a realization of a self-unfolding lamella element as well as the results of first measurements are summarized.